“The Consumerist,” My Ass

Consumers Union is certainly an admirable and important group. It is also an unfortunate one. Not only does it legitimize the slave-word “consumer,” but it has also declined into a mere shopper’s watchdog that has nothing to say about corporate capitalism and its radical incompatibility with a decent human future.

Seems that CU has now picked up the website called The Consumerist. The site, cited with affection by sources like Advertising Age, redoubles and hipsterizes all the present flaws of CU.

Better shopping is not going to get the job done, folks. However many issues we face at the micro level of what to buy, our make-it-or-break-it century’s pressing problems all have to do with the lack of democratic control over macro-level policies. You’d never know that, however, by consulting Consumer Reports or The Consumerist, which, as is probably well understood by their corporate partners, divert potentially radical attention from the political to the merely personal level.